Making Friends: A How-To

​Another of my hobbies is writing, and so for one of my English projects in school, I was supposed to write a paragraph on the subject "making a friend", but instead I ended up writing a whole short story on the subject!  It ended up being a comedy, and I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!  Here it is, Making Friends: A How to...

        Everyone wants to have a friend; someone you can talk to and who's always there for you, no matter what.  Making friends, however, can prove to be a difficult task, with a plethora of details to consider, but if you follow these steps, you'll be sure to succeed! 

        Most important of all, one of the most crucial parts of your entire success, is to make a good first-impression.  You don't want to come off as someone who's snobby and doesn't care anything about self-hygiene.  To avoid setting the wrong impression, embarrassing yourself beyond compare, and making yourself the laughingstock of the entire school, pay attention to these simple tips.  Wear clean clothes that don't carry an odor with them, and if you wear a T-shirt, make sure that what it says doesn't make you seem cocky.  You should also make sure to wear plenty of deodorant and get all of that day-old spinach out of your teeth.  Even if you do all of this, you can still fail miserably in this simple first step if you act snobby, so, whatever you do, make sure not to!  Once you're ready to make a good first-impression, you're ready to move on! 

        Almost everyone enjoys the mouthwatering taste of cookies, so it's a good idea to bake him or her batch of those for the big day, but when it comes to food, he or she might have allergies, so you better find those out before making them.  It would be terrible to put in all that effort to make a good impression and make those cookies, torturing yourself while you make them because they smell so good, and you want to eat them yourself, but you can't, and then to ruin it all because it had nuts and your friend-to-be was allergic to them!  What's worse, he or she would never want to be friends with someone who put him or her in the hospital, causing him or her to miss class, fail an important test, and then never be accepted into his or her dream college, so now you'd have to start completely over with someone else.  That new friend-to-be might even be the class nose-picker, and you don't want to get stuck with him as your only friend, so, as you can see, you can't fail this part of your mission.  Everything is at stake! 

        You have to make sure that he or she doesn't have any food allergies, but you can't just walk up to him or her and say "do you have any food allergies?  No?  Okay, thank you," and then leave.  You have to do it all secretly so that it is unknown what you're planning and so that when you walk up with a tray of cookies, it'll be a surprise.  This is your chance to be an undercover agent!  Throw on some black clothes and get yourself a black ski mask, then, you're ready to do some spy work.  Whenever you see your friend-to-be, follow him or her to wherever he or she goes.  At the supermarket, hide somewhere where you can clearly see the whole aisle, and take note of what he or she buys.  Later, you can look up the ingredients to have an idea of what he or she is not allergic to, but he or she might be purchasing groceries for someone else, so be careful.  The best way to gather definite information is to follow him or her into restaurants and take note of his or her order, and make sure that he or she actually eats it, and take note of the ingredients.  If your friend-to-be asked the waiter if an item contains a certain ingredient, you can conclude that he or she is allergic or doesn't like it, so just don't use it.  Make sure not to be seen as you're spying; someone at a restaurant dressed in black from head to toe and wearing a ski mask can raise suspicion!  Once you know his or her allergies, you can start baking those cookies!

        The next step, the one that seems the most petrifying act to ever be done, is to approach your targeted friend.  This seems impossible to do, like if this goes wrong, your entire social life is out the window!  If you do end up doing this wrong, then assure you, it most likely will be, but don't worry, you have cookies!  What could go wrong if you have those?  Of course, you could drop them, and the chocolate could stain your targeted friend's new dress or shirt, and then he or she will never want to talk to you again, but if you don't use chocolate and keep a tight grip of the plate, everything should go smoothly!  Try to start a conversation, ask him or her about his or her day, what he or she enjoys doing, or something like that.  This will also help you decide if you actually want to be friends with this person.  He or she might have a very interesting life, being an adventurous hiker, and daring biker, a competitive swimmer with a dozen gold medals, or some huge accomplishment.  On the other hand, he or she can also turn out to be a big snooze fest that does nothing but go to school, fail at every course, doze off as the teacher's talking, get sent to detention, doze off in detention, go home, get grounded for such bad grades, doze off while grounded, then after a day of dozing off, go to bed, sleep in, get to school late, and repeat.  Then, when she talks to you, he or she just goes on and on and on about the same thing with absolutely no enthusiasm about it! 

        If your targeted friend is still someone that you want to hang out with, but the situation gets awkward, offer him or her a cookie!  If everything goes great, give him or her the tasty treats when the bell rings, and you have to get to class, making sure to pick a time and place to meet up after school.  

        Now that you know the very complicated steps of the long friend-making process, get to it!  Go make a friend!